Plan Your Trip Times Picks

CULTURED CLUTTER IN A PARIS MUSEUM

By OLIVIER BERNIER; Oliver Bernier's most recent book is ''Words of Fire, Deeds of Blood, the Mob, the Monarchy, and the French Revolution,'' to be published by Little, Brown in April.

Published: December 25, 1988

When the Academy of Fine Arts flourished in France and painters treasured their links with the past, they often signaled their success by starting collections of their own. If they also married a rich woman, then they could buy enough to fill a small museum. That, in fact, is the story of Ernest Hebert, an artist of limited talent whose portraits were in great demand between 1840 and 1900. Today the house on the Left Bank of Paris in which his belongings are gathered is one of the city's least-visited museums.

It deserves better, not only because of the contents, which provide several amusing examples of 19th-century eclectic decor along with a good deal of the artist's work, but also because of the house itself. The property of a relative of Hebert, the former Petit-Montmorency was made into a museum only some 20 years ago; it is also one of the best examples of 18th-century urban architecture in Paris. In 1743, the Comte de Montmorency built himself a very sizable house at what was then southern edge from Paris; 15 years later, he added an even larger house next to it. In both cases he rejected the style of the day, which required the house to be situated between a large courtyard closed to the outside and a garden; both the Petit- and the Grand-Montmorency align their three floors right on the street.

Here, indeed, is the best kind of simple, elegant French architecture: the wide arcades on the ground floor are echoed by the arched windows of the main floor, each topped with a carved shell, and the oblong windows of the top floor. All here is plain, except for the lovely rococo cast-iron balustrades and the lush carving around the small windows of the mezzanine. Luckily, on the inside much of the 18th-century paneling has been preserved.

None of the paneling, however, is in evidence on the ground floor. There, in a series of undistinguished rooms, is Hebert's own work, along with temporary shows of other artists. Within a very short time, the limits of Hebert's imagination become plain. During his first stay in Italy at the age of 22, he was clearly struck by the looks of a Roman peasant woman: her dark hair, and low, broad forehead, her short nose and generous mouth are to be seen again and again in a variety of guises. In its conscientious technique, its cheap dramatization - faces tend to emerge from dark grounds - and its utter lifelessness this is typical academic painting. As such it is not without interest in the midst of the current attempt at rehabilitating these dreary works.

Never, perhaps was the Academy of Fine Arts more powerful than in the 19th century. Bloodless classicism, esoteric and uninspired subjects most often found in Greek or Roman mythology, stiff forms and the pallid colors of the imitators of Ingres prevailed as strict criteria until after the turn of the 20th century. The academy, which held a competition in which the winner received the Prix de Rome and went off to say at the Villa Medici for two or three years, received the exclusive patronage of the state. Most of its leaders were men of considerable technical achievement and no genius: the result was the painting of acres of bland, conventional canvas and the stifling of originality whenever it appeared in the student's work.

Repetition was thus all too typical of the academic style. Hebert seems to have grown weary of eternally painting the same face, though, as a second type of face, less bovine, does eventually appear, along with evidence of a flirtation with symbolism. His Ste. Marguerite, for instance, is clearly influenced by Gustave Moreau, and while that is an improvement on his own style, the results remain second-rate. The portraits are also typical. In their literal but flattering rendering, they are just what the upper middle classes wanted.

Upstairs things become a good deal more lively. Left of the stairs on the first floor (above the mezzanine), a small salon offers three more portraits - one of the literary critic Jules Lemaitre, a friend of Hebert's, looking just as complacent as he did for several decades, with two of the most expensive kept women in Paris, the Paiva and Mme. de Loynes, both looking equally mysterious and appealing. As advertising, this painting cannot be faulted.

Still, amusing as these paintings are, it is the decor that most deserves attention. Whether it is the alcove draped with Oriental carpets, the fire screen on which brown plush serves as a ground for a piece of 18th- century brocade, or the dozens of objects, what we see is the crowded, eclectic look that was current in the 1880's - and is coming back into fashion. Photographs of the artist, and his palette, sit next to Chinese porcelain bowls, Louis XVI silver candlesticks, Meissen figurines, fans of various periods and an assortment of vases, while the mantel is adorned with a clock and candlesticks in gilt bronze set with medallions of lapis and malachite. None of the objects are first-rate, none are really worthless. Together, they are not without charm.